Utility Scale Storage

Batteries of the type have traditionally been used for long-duration storage applications. Now though, it seems vanadium is making an entry into the fast-paced world of ancillary grid services.

Elon Musk’s EV and energy company is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the rooftop solar market, but battery sales are booming.

Australia’s Northern Territory has given major project status to an ambitious plan to develop a 10 GW solar farm coupled with a 20-30 GWh storage facility near Tennant Creek and export solar power harvested in the Australian desert to Singapore via subsea cables.

A floating solar array will be located in the North Sea near an aquaculture and an offshore wind power facility. The €2 million pilot project is being developed by a consortium including Tractebel, Jan De Nul Group, Deme, Soltech and Ghent University.

… and it will be quite an effort. The U.K.’s grid operator, National Grid, released a new report on possible energy system transformation pathways, amidst growing public concern over climate change. Ramping carbon emissions reduction targets up from 80% to 100% prompts technical challenges. These can be overcome but will require full alignment of policy effort and individual awareness and decision making.

A report published by New Zealand’s state-owned transmission grid operator Transpower finds the widespread uptake of distributed battery storage could play an important role in supporting the power system as rooftop PV and electric vehicles are increasingly adopted.

While it is often stated only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled, a review of research into the second life and recycling of lithium-ion batteries suggests that is a gross understatement. A new study found almost 100,000 tons of waste batteries were recycled last year – about half of what reached end-of-life.

A new report by the Energy Information Administration projects U.S. installed battery storage capacity will reach 2.5 GW by 2023. Florida and New York are set to pave the way as massive projects in each state will account for almost half the coming capacity.

The Moroccan agency for sustainable energy is pre-qualifying developers for the Noor Midelt II project, a solar complex incorporating CSP and PV elements.

The head of Mercom Capital says solar has a long way to go before it can stand without policy support. Effective grid parity will only be achieved when the cost of PV electricity factors in the expense of grid upgrades and the storage systems its intermittent nature requires, says Raj Prabhu.